A Checklist for Evaluating a Worthy Domain Name

By Pat Flynn on February 15, 2010

I’m back!

Well – technically I never really left, but I have been moving into a new house for the past couple of weeks, and it really does take a toll on productivity. Even without a 9 to 5 job, I felt like all I was doing and all I could think about was moving and painting.

So now, as I write my first blog post from the new office in my new pad, I’m happy to say that I’m ready to crank out some more useful content for you.

The following is my checklist for evaluating a good domain name. If you’re a beginner, I recommend using this as you begin the process of selecting a domain name for your blog or business. If you already have an established website, run through the checklist and see how your domain name does, and be sure to keep these in mind for any future projects.

1. Self-Hosted

First and foremost, although it’s not directly related to the domain name itself, your website should be self-hosted.

As you may already know, there are two types of websites: hosted and self-hosted.

With a hosted website, such as ones running free from WordPress.com (not to be confused with WordPress.org, where you can download WordPress for your self-hosted site) or Blogger.com, your running on another company’s server and using their storage for your content. Although there are some benefits to starting your work online on a hosted website (i.e. it’s free), I always recommend starting a self-hosted website instead.

Here’s why:

The Domain Name: In most cases, with a hosted website, you’re going to have the hosting company’s name in your domain name. For example, if this blog was hosted on blogger.com, it would be: smartpassiveincome.blogspot.com. To me, it’s far less professional looking, especially if you want to establish yourself as an authority in a niche. Additionally, “word of mouth” becomes less convenient too.

Maximum Control: Many of the free hosting services limit what you can do with your site, especially with the design – and that makes sense. If the company’s name is in the domain name, they’re going to want to control what can and cannot be done. With a self-hosted website, what you do to your website is limited only by your imagination.

It’s YOUR Content: What scares me the most about hosted websites is what would happen if WordPress.com or Blogger.com were to get bought out and shut down, or simply just stopped working. Your content would be gone. Although the content is always yours, it really isn’t yours unless it’s on your own self-hosted site.

I always use the domain and hosting services from Bluehost.com. (Full Disclosure – I make a commission if you buy through this link.) They are the recommended host by WordPress.org and they have a one-click WordPress blog install, which is what attracted me to them in the first place.

If you’re still uneasy about starting a WordPress blog, it’s not very difficult. You should check out this video where I walk you through how to start a blog, write your first post and insert a picture, in less than 4 minutes.

If you already have a hosted blog on another website, that’s okay. You can still migrate to a self-hosted site without losing all of your content. There are articles online about how to do this, but if I were you’d I’d save myself the trouble and pay someone to do it for me for a small fee.

2. Keywords

Your domain name doesn’t have to have keywords in it to be successful, but it sure does help.

Primarily, the keywords help the search engines rank your website for relevance to a particular topic, and of course it also helps when people are searching for the same terms online.

As you can see in the screenshot from the keyword tool I use, Market Samurai, it shows that the keyword in the URL is indeed a factor in determining search engine page rankings:

How you integrate the keywords into your domain name is up to you, but there are a few things to think about:

For some long-tail keywords related to your niche, it might sound weird to have the entire keyword phrase as your domain. A blog about fly fishing in North America at flyfishinginnorthamerica.com doesn’t have that “branded” feel to it.

Don’t fuss too long about the keywords if you can’t seem to find the right ones, or all of the good domains are taken. There are millions of examples of successful websites that do not have the keyword in the home url. Remember, when you write a blog post or create a new page, you can incorporate the keywords into the url then as well.

3. No Numbers

I would do my best to avoid using any numbers in your domain name.

Why?

Because when you say a number, you don’t know if it’s supposed to be written numerically (5), or spelled out (five). If your website goes huge and you happen to land an interview on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien Show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, you wouldn’t want to give anyone the chance of misspelling the domain.

Here are some hypothetical examples for the number 105:

onehundredfive.com

100five.com

105.com

1hundred5.com

onehundredand5.com

one-hundred5.com

and so on and so forth…

Yes, you could always just clarify it each time you say it, but let me tell you from experience (since my personal email has a number in it) – it gets really annoying.

Again, if you already have a number in your domain name, don’t fret. If you do go big, you may want to think about grabbing all of the different spelling combinations before someone else does and tries to capitalize on your success.

4. No Confusing or Easily Misspelled Words

Along the same lines as “no numbers”, you shouldn’t have any confusing words or words that could be easily misspelled.

We have the usual suspects, such as their vs. there vs. they’re. But we also have a number of people trying to be “cute” while only making things harder for them. I think this comes from the younger generation who is into texting and instant messaging and those kinds of things.

For example, they’ll write “qt” instead of “cutie”.

Try to explain to someone that your website is at qtbakery.com, and you may end up offending that person when you do that thing where you talk extra long and slow to emphasize something:

“I’m at qtbakery dot com”

“CutieBakery dot com?”

“No, Q………..T……….Bakery dot com!”

“That’s what I just said!”

“…What?”

5. No Trademarks

When I started my LEED exam prep website, it was actually first at intheleed.com before I switched it to GreenExamAcademy.com. The reason for the switch?

I was using a registered trademark (LEED) in my domain.

I started that blog without the intention of ever making money from it. If I knew any better, I probably would have done more research about the domain name I chose, but I was sure it was okay because there are a ton of other websites out there that used registered marks in the domain name, right?

The truth is, if you have a trademark in your domain name, you’re putting yourself and your site at risk. Those other sites that have trademarks are just lucky that the company who registered the trademark either doesn’t care, or has yet to notice.

For a good year and a half, I was using a trademark in my domain and everything was fine, until one day I received a Cease and Desist Letter which basically said “Stop or Else”.

There were arguments in my favor for keeping the domain, such as the fair use doctrine and prior court cases, and I did hire a lawyer to help me out, but it’s such a gray area and really when it comes down to it, these companies have so much more money and manpower than I do, and it’s just not worth the time and effort it would take to fight it.

So, I dumped intheleed.com, took on greenexamacademy.com, and with the help of a temporary 301 redirect, I was still able to keep all of my “Google SEO Juice” and keyword rankings. All is well, but I did go through a lot of stress.

Again, if you have a website already and you break some of these “rules”, don’t worry about it too much. You probably have already been somewhat successful with what you already have, so keep at it and don’t give up.

First of all, congrats on the move and settling in to your new office. I am defiantly ready for awesome content and I know most of us are too.

I would have to agree that bluehost is a great place to start when hosting any site. The one click wordpress upload script is amazing! In the past I had to manually upload wordpress myself. The total time to set up my site was about 5 mins.

Was bluehost your first choice?

You hit another great point, on what not use when picking out a domain name. Adding a number or acronym, gets confusing what your brand name is really about.

Great info about researching trademarks before jumping the gun. I need to check that out right now. Did you use ustpo.gov?

As always Pat, keep up the great work!

Pat

Hi Brian,

Indeed, bluehost was my first choice, and I haven’t had any major problems with the service so far.

And thanks for reminding me about ustpo.gov – I’ll update the post right now with that information. Thanks!

Thanks for the information on choosing a domain name. I use bluehost for my hosting and have had very few problems with them. Also, I have contacted support several times and they have responded in a timely manner. I’ve used the live chat and each time my problem has been resolved by one of their technicians through chat.

Also, the point on no trademarks is very important. While I haven’t received a cease and desist I did register some trademarked domain names early on. However, before I began building a site around the trademarked domain I came across a post similar to this one informing people about the dangers of trademarked domains.

Oh, and one last thing…I made the mistake of numbers in my domain years ago. I guess along the way I’ve made pretty much every mistake, but that’s how we learn.

Very good points for beginners looking to choose a domain!

Pat

Hi Colby – yeah, bluehost support is great. I’ve used live chat myself at times when the site seems slow, and they usually tell me it’s because they are upgrading their servers, which is a good thing.

Mistakes are how we learn, and hopefully we can apply everything we’ve learned from the past to our current projects! Cheers Colby!

Howie

Great tips, as usual, Pat! Amidst the chaos of moving and blogging, did you take any time to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your lady?

….we are too modest to do the $50 a meal venues all the time….but, we usually break down once a year (namely…Valentine’s Day….)….they had little edible chocolate shots with red and white wine….and, the Filet Mignon was so succulent it melted in our mouths….

Pat

Hi Howie! Yes, we did celebrate Valentine’s day together. We left Keoni with Grandma and Grandpa, and had our first evening to just ourselves in a very long long time. Cheesecake Factory is amazing. Mmm…

Thanks Pat for sharing another great website. I think having own host and domain name is a must for serious online businessman. Because the last thing to worry about is to have your blog being shut down after building it for quite sometimes.

Cheers

Pat

Thanks Daniel, and I’m surprised that your comment didn’t get picked up by the filter this time. Yay!

I’m in the beginning stages with a Blogger website, but I have a good friend who is going to help with the move over to a self-hosted site on Blue Host. This post is very timely for me as I am currently searching for available domain names.

Glad to hear the move is successful. And if you are anything like me, I imagine you are grateful that the painting is over!

Pat

Yes – I am super stoked that painting is over. i don’t want to see another paintbrush or roller ever. I just hope I don’t find any spots in the house that I missed, because that would probably prompt me to pull out a touch up kit and fix it. LOL.

Anyways, good luck with the move to the self hosted site, and finding available domain names that fit your site!

As you can see, your #3 was not considered when I got my domain name (which I had to buy from cheese head) However, in my “niche” its totally ok that I did that.

Have you gotten your whiteboard yet?

Pat

Hi Nick. I have gotten the whiteboards, they are just waiting to be placed onto the wall and I’m going to get some matching door trim to put around it so it matches the door opening too. I’ll prop it up after the rest of the house is organized though. Lots of small things to place here and there.

Robert Hagstrom

Hey, Pat. I’ve settled on a domain name, and I’m glad I meet all your criteria. Now, do you recommend that I secure “similar” domain names right away? Is that an additional charge on bluehost?

BTW, let me know if you need help cutting and securing your frame to the whiteboard.

A new blog in a new office. Excellent! Lots of great points here. I agree, self-hosted is a must. I had a website through a hosted shopping cart once and it was a pain in the butt. Everytime they updated the software it would default the entire site. I had to go in countless times and fix everything. What a mess. Finally I gave up and dumped it. From there on, everything I own has to be self hosted. Big lesson to learn.

A good Domain name is so important. Google gives your site so much more power if your name has to do with your niche. But finding that good name is difficult. I come up with great names, but only if I want to pay $3000 or up. I’m sure that’s why some people add in numbers and letters and odd ball things like trying to spell out the artist formerly known as Prince.

One thing that you didn’t bring up was hyphens. I really debated about using hyphens in my name in the beginning, but it hasn’t hurt me in the least.

Great post. I was waiting to see what the new view brings!

Pat

Which hosted site were you using before that kept resetting on you, if you don’t mind me asking. That totally sounds like a pain!

Yeah, it sucks how many of the good domain names are just being sat on by squatters who are trying to make a buck. I’ve tried to play that game before, and it’s not really all that fun. If you’re going to start a real business, then an expensive domain name might be worth it, and if you’re an established business it could be a tax write off.

And about hyphens, it’s not a BAD thing to have hyphens in the domain name. It doesn’t really hurt SEO-wise, and the only downfall I would see would be having to explain that there’s a “dash” between Jewelry and Secrets, for example, if you’re talking on an interview or in person.

I mean, Yaro Starak has entrepreneurs-journey.com and he seems to be doing just fine 🙂

A great post Pat. I would add a few points:
I recommend against hyphens or underscores in the name, if you can avoid it. SEO is important, but it’s not everything. Trying to tell a customer your URL when you have a hyphen is frustrating. To me, a .net domain name is worth more than a hyphenated domain name.

If none of those are available consider chaining three keywords together and you’ll increase your ability to rank for all of their combinations. If you’ll forgive the self reference, seokeywordranking.com can do well with “seo keyword”, “seo ranking” and “keyword ranking”. It’s important that all combinations work together.

Pat

Hi Will, thanks so much for your insightful comment. I totally agree with all of your points, especially that a .net is worth more than a hyphenated domain. Darren from problogger.net proves that you don’t need a .com to become a top authority in a niche.

No worries about the self reference, it’s a great example. Thanks Will!

I’m glad someone brought up the issue of hyphens versus a .net site. The top domain name that I wanted was taken but it is available in both a hyphenated format and a .net. Great info. on helping me make my decision.

My domain is so unspecific-I guess-but I try to include some relevant keywords in the post content. If and when I opt to create another blog, my focus will be more on keywords and seo.

That’s interesting that no part of a Trademark is permitted to be used. What if I wanted to name a site….McDonaldsistheBestplacetoeat.com besides the obvious run-on why would they care? The domain is positive, and it attracts attention to them as well.

hmmmm….

Pat

Yeah, you’d think that if the site is good and positive, that they’d let it go, but I think that there’s a specific rule or law that says that if a company wants to stop anybody’s use of their trademark, they must do it for all other websites that contain the trademark as well. It kind of makes sense, because it wouldn’t be fair to choose to take action against one over another (and it would make a mess legally), but still – I think I was helping them out big time and they still cracked down.

It is easy to overlook potential issues with a domain name. I thought Tight Fisted Miser would be a catchy name for a frugality blog. Unfortunately, a lot of my early search engine traffic was people searching for the keywords “tight” and “fisted”. I’m sure my blog was not what they were looking for.

Pat

Hi Andy, I love the name of your blog, but yeah – the search engine traffic probably picks up some unwanted personalities. That being said, SEO isn’t everything, and you’ve got a memorable name that’s great for word of mouth and standing out in the crowded niche. Cheers!

Hey Pat,
It appears intheleed.com is no longer redirected. So you’re definitely loosing some Google juice. Just an FYI.

Pat

Hey Wesley, as I mentioned in the post, it was a temporary redirect, as I was not allowed to keep a permanent 301 redirect, because that’s still “using” the domain name, unfortunately.

Yes, I would have been better off if I was still able to keep the domain, or keep the redirect, but my traffic and numbers have shown little to no decrease because of the change over, since Google was able to understand that I was making the switch based on the temporary 301 redirect 🙂

How does the 301 redirect work? I was thinking of changing my blog name from StrugglingInvestor.com to something a little more positive. I’ve put it off because I was afraid to lose the juice. It recently got a PR1 ranking which I was happy about. Any advice?

Pat

Hi Scott – Wesley, below, answers your question quite nicely. I apologize for any confusion from my post. When I say I did a temporary 301 redirect, I meant it as a permanent 301 redirect, which was then cut off after a month, after I guess Google figured out what my new domain name was going to be. I didn’t know there was an actual thing called a “temporary 301 redirect” as Wesley describes below.

And to give you some insight, when I switched from intheleed.com (a PR 3 page), it dropped to a PR 0. When the next page rank update came along, it went up to Page Rank 5!

I’m not Pat,
But a 301 permanent redirect redirects the old domain to the new, and supposed to pass most if not all of the Google link juice to the new domain. If you have alot of link pointing to the old domain and you can’t get those websites to the new domain it is best to go ahead and keep renewing your old domain for about $10/yr and have it permanently redirected to the new domain name.

A 301 temporary redirect tells Google and the other search engines that you are only temporarily redirecting your domain or web page, and that it will return at a later date.

I hope that helps!

Pat

Thanks Wesley, I replied to Scott above with more about your perfect answer. Cheers!

No Problem, Pat. You have a great blog and I’m happy to share my expertise.

Just an FYI: After I replied to Scott I realized I replied in the wrong spot, but couldn’t delete or change it. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just decided to leave it rather than post the same reply in the right spot. I figured I was close enough. 🙂

I also think that people should grab their own name url as well, preferably a dotcom. Also go out and grab every name in all the social networks. Own arrowheadsforblondes.com? Grab that same name on facebook,digg,ning,twitter, ustream,youtube etc.etc…

Those properties are becoming increasingly popular, and it should be so easy for people to find you, that even a blonde could find it. (Sorry Blondies, just a easy pun)

Also, I have heard great things about Bluehost. I heard shoemoney dissing a company that I think was bluehost but not sure. “Search twitter for Shoemoney and Bluehost keywords if you really want to find out.”
I use LunarPages since I first started on the web and they are great too. I have never had any problems or issues with them.
Glad to see ya settled in. I admire your consistency. That is a key to blogging loyalty that few bloggers realize. And I feel for you painting. I used to be a full time painter and used to put on about 200-300 gallons a week. Not fun. Still have Nightmares!

See Ya!
Brandon

p.s. Check out my new blog linked in Pat and let me know what you think. I haven’t posted yet or added my autoresponder or E-Book, but you can get a gist of what it’s about and I will let you know when I get the e-book up as I will be using your Bluprint predominately.

p.p.s Sorry for such a long comment. This could be a blog post in it’s own!!

Pat

Great comment Brandon. We should definitely grab our own names if we still can, especially with the .com’s. Unfortunately, patflynn.com (which would be AWESOME to have), is already taken.

No worries about the long comment, I love them.

Checked out your new blog – very cool and ambitious stuff! I love the word – Domination! That’s what everything we do online should be about 🙂

Good luck!

Ron

I’ve definitely been guilty of the long-tail keyword rich domain name for some web projects before, but they were mainly for producing highly niched sites. Great advice Pat, congrats on the new move.

Pat

Thanks Ron, I appreciate it! It’s good to hear from you again. I hope all is well!

I hear you on the copyrighted/ trademark issue. I did the same thing myself, and the cease and desist letter was a surprise. And yes, it was stressful. In my case, I had not done much with the site when the lawyers got ahold of me, but I can imagine your case was even more frustrating.

Pat

Hi Maria – it was indeed a bit frustrating, partly because I hadn’t done my homework at first, and partly because it just didn’t seem fair, at least for what I was doing for the company itself. Sorry to hear you had a similar experience, I hope it didn’t cause you too much trouble.

Excellent Post. You hit it on the money when you said this was a perfect post for a beginner. I will try tomorrow to think of that perfect domain name and check out bluehost.com. Thank you once again for your tremendous posts!

-Lanny B.

Pat

Hi Lanny! Thanks again for the email, and I’m glad you found this post somewhat useful for where you’re at. Keep up the good work, and all the best to you!

Can check off a few of the boxes. Better bookmark this article before I register another one!

Thanks. Hope the move went well. How’d you end up mounting your whiteboards anyway?

Pat

Hey Steven – I have yet to mount the boards, although I did already purchase and cut them to the appropriate size. I’m aligning the tops of the boards to the opening of an adjacent door, so I can frame it with similar door trim so it looks a bit nicer. I also have something pretty cool in mind regarding that white board dry erase paint that I’ll fill you guys in on once it’s finished. It might be a week or so, as my wife and I still have a lot to organize around the house first.

You have so much useful info here, I spent my entire morning viewing your videos and reading. Blogging is quite an orchestration and I’ve had to outsource some tech aspects — need to surround myself with more experienced peeps as I’m a willing student 🙂

About moving and painting, why didn’t you pay for this service. I don’t know how expensive is this in SD, but you can try the following Spanish speech:
“Hola Señor Pintor, cuanto me cobra por pintar mi departamento y ayudarme a mover los muebles? No se malo, cobreme un poco menos” OK, stop of Spanish, but I think you can get good help on a border city.
About Self-Hosted I have a big exception of this rule: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Cheers,

Jaime

Pat

Jaime, thanks for your comment.

As far as hiring someone to paint for me, as much as it sounded like I disliked doing it, I actually enjoy doing those types of things myself. I did hire someone to move all of the furniture for me, which I was very happy to do.

As far as Seth’s site, he’s an exception to everything. He’s in his own league and if he were to start a blog on a geocities or xanga site, it would still perform just as well.

i love this post..while reading it, i compared my present domain name with the info…will do better next time…

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kevin

Pat, do you think it is better to use a trademarked name for one’s blog in the beginning (as you did) an then do a 301 redirect later? As in using the philosophy, act now, and apologize later? What do the others think?

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I know this post is old, so hope you read… but just wondering if after the issued with LEED, have you done a trademark for “smart passiive income”? and what your view is on trademarking the url you are going to use as a front for your business….

Is using the word ‘cloud’ in a .com domain name a bad idea as recently this has become a term used everywhere. Would this decrease the SEO value?

Secondly, as you’ll be aware many companies buy domain names and then sell them on at a drastically increased price. Whilst I’m not going to go into the ethics of this, what would you suggest good ‘additions’ to a domain to be?

I really would appreciate a response.

Cheers,

Matt

Ray Corkran

Hi Pat, wanted to know registrar you use? While most provide decent service and average prices I just wanted to know who your goto company is. Currently I’m using dynadot.com. Thanks!

Pat – for niche creation do you recommend getting into the medical field? For example a website reviewing supplements specifically for osteoporosis or brain health or something? Or do you need to be a .gov or an organization to get any credibility?

Emilio Leon

I think this is a good enough domain name for a passive income website: http://doingbusinessonautopilot.com (I bought it for an idea, but now I chose a different kind of niche for my website)